Author: Leticia (Shh, I Am Reading)

I'm a 30 year old avid reader with a giant love and lust for books, especially science fiction, fantasy, young adult, horror and the occasional romance or drama novel. I live in Ontario, Canada and spend my free time indulging in good books or video games.

This has been a really tough decision for me to make and I’ve been weighing my options for a while now. But, a few weeks ago I was informed that certain content that I post on this blog could end up getting my blog deleted.
For any blogger, this is terrifying. Whether you’ve just started out or you are a pro at this now. That’s so much time, effort and content to lose. It hurts your credibility, the credibility of any authors you review for and anyone else involved in your blog.

So out of desperation to keep my content, I backed off of posting that kind of content and opened a secondary blog for the content.

Now I’m realizing how much work it is to have that secondary blog plus this one.

So I have decided to close this blog and move all future reviews, interviews and tour content to the new one. This is not a decision that I’ve taken lightly and I definitely have debated it thoroughly, but alas I must comply with WordPress and their user guidelines.

For the authors who are seeking my reviews in the future (if you’ve come from any of the Indie Review sites), please either e-mail me or find me on the links above, especially Facebook.

Welcome to Teaser Tuesday, the weekly Meme that wants you to add books to your TBR, or just share what you are currently reading. It is very easy to play along:

• Grab your current read• Open to a random page• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! Everyone loves Teaser Tuesday.

“Meet the Family”, Rebirth of the Gangster’s first story arc, comes to an explosive close!

Sick of being the victim, Marcus finally decides to take matters into his own hands.

Andrea is getting antsy in her role as a trophy wife.

Linda must deal with the fallout of her relapse from the last issue.

Lorena continues her investigation into Hunter, talking to an unexpected informant.

Dennis, an old friend of Hunter’s, gets out on parole and tries to walk the straight and narrow, but faces a fork in the road when he runs into Hunter again.

And Hunter is about to escalate his plans for revenge: there will be no turning back from his actions as someone pays the ultimate price!

My Rating

My Review

I received this comic from the author in exchange for an honest review.

Well damn, this was an entirely different issue than the first five, for sure.

So it is becoming more obvious that Hunter is very dangerous. Whether he is a criminal or not, that boy has vengeance on the mind.

Although this focused on meeting a particular character, Dennis; what stuck out to me the most was how oblivious Marcus is to his new “friend” Hunter. Despite Marcus’ parent’s trying to prevent him from destruction.

I’m also a high school English teacher: next year I’ll be teaching a graphic novel course; in the past, I’ve taught a hip-hop course; and I educate the youth about other valuable things, like Shakespeare.

At a research station in Antarctica, five of the world’s top scientists have been brought together to solve one of the greatest mysteries in human history. Their subject, however, is anything but human . . .

THEY ARE NOT NATURAL.

Deep beneath the ice, the submerged ruins of a lost civilization hold the key to the strange mutations that each scientist has encountered across the globe: A misshapen skull in Russia. The grotesque carvings of a lost race in Peru. The mummified remains of a humanoid monstrosity in Egypt . . .

THEY ARE NOT FRIENDLY.

When a series of sound waves trigger the ancient organisms, a new kind of evolution begins. Latching onto a human host—crossbreeding with human DNA—a long-extinct life form is reborn. Its kind has not walked the earth for thousands of years. Its instincts are fiercer, more savage, than any predator alive. And its prey are the scientists who unleashed it, the humans who spawned it, and the tender living flesh on which it feeds . . .

Praise for Michael McBride

“A fast-paced and frightening ride. Highly recommended for fans of creature horror and the thrillers of Michael Crichton.”—The Horror Review on PREDATORY INSTINCT

Anya screamed and ran to Richards. Grabbed him by the back of the jacket and pulled.

“You have to help me!”

The freezing air buffeted her in the face when she looked up and saw a man only vaguely resembling Armand Scott pounce to the ground from on top of Connor. Snowflakes blew sideways past him and stuck to the walkway between them. His cranial deformity was identical to that of the remains she’d unearthed in Russia, only the physical expression of the flesh was for more terrifying than she could ever have imagined. She’d envisioned its face as being similar to that of modern man, but there was nothing remotely human about Scott’s appearance. Everything about him was alien, from the grayish cast of his skin to the way he twitched and moved in lurches, as though unfamiliar with the mechanics of motion.

Fissures crackled as they raced through the Plexiglas.

The creature scuttled forward and cocked its head, first one way and then the other. Blood dribbled from its mouth when it issued a hiss that sounded like steam firing from a ruptured pipe.

Anya screamed and threw herself to her knees.

“Come on!”

She grabbed Richards underneath his arms and shouted with the effort of lifting him. He found his feet, but couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the creature.

“It’s magnificent,” he said.

“Hurry!” Friden shouted.

The stairwell echoed with the drumroll of footsteps hitting the iron steps.

Anya looked back and saw several silhouettes bounding down the staircase toward them. She jerked Richards so hard she nearly sent him sprawling once more, but he regained his balance and stumbled backward with her. She took advantage of his newfound momentum to drag him away from the creature, which lunged forward, cutting the distance between them in half.

A scream from behind her.

She whirled to find Kelly in the opening to the Skyway, her hands clapped over her mouth. When Anya looked back, the creature was within ten feet of them and tensed to make another advance.

More popping sounds from above her. The cracks spread through the walls in her peripheral vision. Chunks of Plexiglas fell to the ground between her and the creature, which released a series of clicking sounds and retreated into the blowing snow.

A loud snap and a cable sang past to her right. The entire bridge shuddered.

“Hurry, Anya!” Friden shouted.

“There’s another one behind us!” Jade screamed.

“Start barricading the stairwell,” Evans shouted.

“And then what?” Jade asked. “We’ll be trapped in here without light or heat or any way to signal for help.”

Anya pulled Richards toward them. If she could just cross the threshold at the end of the Skyway, they could seal the creature on the other side.

Another cable snapped and the floor dropped.

Anya hit the ground on her knees and barely scrambled out of the way before Richards landed on top of her.

The walkway sloped downward toward where the creature crouched. The domed Plexiglas shattered and dropped enormous shards between them. The storm raced through the gap, creating a moving wall of snow between them that nearly concealed the creature as it approached, low to the ground and coming up fast.

A resounding thud.

The Skyway slanted downward, so steeply that Anya started to slide. She grabbed Richards by the back of the jacket with one hand and reached for anything at all with the other.

“Hang on!” Evans shouted and dove for her. He caught her by the wrist and halted her slide.

Another cable snapped and whipped the frozen glass beside them hard enough to shatter the glass and impale her cheek with tiny fragments.

Evans groaned and pulled her up toward the doorway, the seal around which was already buckled and peeling away from the building.

“Give me a hand!” he shouted.

Friden tentatively crawled to Evans’s side, grabbed Richards, and pulled hard enough on the back of his coat to pry him from Anya’s grasp, lightening her burden enough that Evans could drag her up the slope and over the fractured edge.

She scurried past Evans, turned around, and helped the others pull Richards into the stairwell.

Bolts snapped and structural rings disengaged. Bits of Plexiglas cascaded down the bridge toward where the creature crawled toward them.

A chasm opened behind it. Connor’s body slid through, tumbled out over the nothingness, and vanished into the storm.

“Close the door!” Anya screamed.

The creature slapped at the floor with its bare hands as the bridge grew steeper, digging its fingernails into the tiles in an effort to gain traction.

Evans pried the door from the recess until the others were able to help him drag it across the entryway.

The creature shrieked and scrambled uphill, blood dribbling from the gunshot wounds on its chest.

Ten feet.

Five.

It was nearly upon them when the Skyway broke away from the building.

The creature’s eyes widened. Its nails tore from the cuticles. It screeched and flailed.

The last thing Anya saw before they sealed the door was the expression of sheer terror on its face as it plummeted into the blowing snow.

“Someone help me!” Roche shouted from the landing at the top of the staircase, where he struggled to jerk the door from its slot in the wall. “It’s right behind me!”

Anya rushed for the stairs and hit them behind Kelly and Jade, who were already halfway up. She barely had the strength to climb and had to use the railing to pull herself higher. She nearly lost her balance when her hand slipped in something wet, but she managed to stumble forward and made it to the landing, where the others already had the gap down to a mere foot. A dark shape streaked straight toward the opening from the foyer on the other side, the light reflecting from its inhuman eyes.

“It’s coming!” Anya screamed.

She threw herself against the face of the door and used her shoulder to help the others drive it closed with a resounding thud.

The creature struck it from the other side, hard enough to knock her backward, but she braced herself and leaned into it again.

Kelly screamed beside her as the creature hurled itself against the steel door, over and over.

Until, finally, it stopped.

Anya desperately listened for any indication of what it was doing on the other side but couldn’t hear anything over the combination of their heavy breathing and whimpering.

She pictured Arkaim, with its twin fortified rings, a veritable fortress that should have been able to withstand any siege, reduced to little more than scorched rubble in the middle of a field, and the strange remains she exhumed near its outskirts. She’d made a terrible mistake in assuming that the coneheaded species represented a terminal branch in the human evolutionary tree rather than an off shoot from modern man, one facilitated by something lacking in humanity, something subhuman, the outward physical manifestation of which looked an awful lot like the alien species referred to as Grays.

Only there was nothing fictional about this being.

The creature shrieked and threw itself against the door one final time. It released a torrent of guttural clicks, then retreated into the station. The sound of its footsteps diminished until she couldn’t hear anything from the other side at all.

Anya stepped back and looked at the door. Her hand had left a smear of blood on the steel. She glanced down at her palm, expecting to find a laceration, but the skin was intact.

She took Roche’s flashlight from him and traced the railing down to where she’d slipped. There was blood on the rail, and even more on the wall above it, leading up to a hole in the exposed ductwork. Her heart sank when she gave voice to what they were all thinking.

“We’re going to die in here.”

Author Bio:

Michael McBride was born in Colorado and still resides in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. He hates the snow, but loves the Avalanche. He works with medical radiation, yet somehow managed to produce five children, none of whom, miraculously, have tails, third eyes, or other random mutations. He writes fiction that runs the gamut from thriller (Remains) to horror to science fiction (Vector Borne, Snowblind) . . . and loves every minute of it. He is a two-time winner of the DarkFuse Readers’ Choice Award. You can visit him at author.michaelmcbride.net.

After a summer spent in a haunted castle—a summer in which she traveled through time to solve a murder mystery—Kat is looking forward to a totally normal senior year at McTernan Academy. Then the ghost of a little girl appears and begs Kat for help, and more unquiet apparitions follow. All of them are terrified by the Dark One, and it soon becomes clear that that this evil force wants Kat dead.

Searching for help, Kat leaves school for the ancestral home she’s only just discovered. Her friend Evan, whose family is joined to her own by an arcane history, accompanies her. With the assistance of her eccentric great aunts and a loyal family ghost, Kat soon learns that she and Evan can only fix the present by traveling into the past.

As Kat and Evan make their way through nineteenth-century Vienna, the Dark One stalks them, and Kat must decide what she’s willing to sacrifice to save a ghost.

Excerpt

“I can’t help you now,” I said to the ghost beside my desk. I tucked my blond hair behind my ear and pushed my tortoiseshell glasses higher on my nose.

He remained there in his high-waisted, dark gray suit and fedora hat. Definitely circa the 1920s. He folded his arms and leaned against my desk, the picture of patience. “I can wait.”

I looked out the window in front of me. On the sidewalk below, parents helped my classmates lug their belongings into the dorm. Today was the start of my senior year at McTernan Academy. And a return to normal.

But this was the third ghost to visit my dorm for his reckoning, that one final piece of business they had to complete before they could move on.

Not believing in ghosts had kept them away for years until this summer, when I was forced to confront some incredible unbelievables—ghosts, spells, curses, and time travel. I couldn’t pretend to not believe anymore, so, since then, ghosts kept appearing and asking for my help. I wanted to help them. I truly did.

But it was exhausting. Every time a ghost appeared, it stole energy from the living. And I was always the nearest living person. I scarfed down junk food and sugary snacks to keep my energy up. It wasn’t enough. At seventeen, I had regressed to daily naps.

I’d spent most of August trying to get ahead of their reckonings before the school year started. I really thought it was possible. For a while, it even distracted me from my own issues; but senior year was starting, and the ghosts were becoming a serious problem.

I took a bite of my Twix and tried to reason with the ghost. “Someone might see you in my dorm. Can you all form a line and meet me in the park on Saturdays?” I could devote my Saturdays to the ghosts, just not my every day.

He glanced back over his shoulder and smiled like he saw something I didn’t. “We’ve been in line for years.”

A dull pounding started in the base of my skull. “I can’t keep up this pace.” My voice thinned the way a plastic bag does when you put too much in it.

His smile flickered. “But we need your help.”

“And there’s no one else?” I wasn’t the only person who saw ghosts. There were other believers out there. Some of them were my friends.

“No one quite like you.”

Sometimes I really wished I were mediocre. Being special meant that the ghosts were going to take over my life again. I couldn’t let that happen. Luckily, ghosts from his era were polite. He’d introduced himself when he arrived and that gave me the power to send him away. “Gilbert Wells, go away.”

He frowned and faded into a shimmer of dust that disappeared into a shadow.

It was the best I could do.

I got up and a wave of dizziness made me stumble. I needed to rest for a bit. I sat on my bright blue comforter, laid my head on my pillow, and was asleep in seconds.

K.C. Tansley lives with her warrior lapdog, Emerson, and two quirky golden retrievers on a hill somewhere in Connecticut. She tends to believe in the unbelievables—spells, ghosts, time travel—and writes about them.

Never one to say no to a road trip, she’s climbed the Great Wall twice, hopped on the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg, and danced the night away in the dunes of Cape Hatteras. She loves the ocean and hates the sun, which makes for interesting beach days. The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts is her award-winning and bestselling first novel in The Unbelievables series.

As Kourtney Heintz, she also writes award winning cross-genre fiction for adults.

I spend my life hunting Vamps and Fiends and killing them, but my main
goal has always been to destroy my evil father while keeping my
sisters at bay.

Sex, drugs and rock and roll keep me going. Oh, and killing things.

This supernatural horror thriller will keep you turning the pages. I
promise.

The curtain parted a moment later and a very confused, very surprised, male entered. It was my mark, and I could see the excitement growing in his beige pants.

“Join us,” she moaned to him.

I didn’t say a word; I continued to enjoy myself as she continued to play with me without missing a beat and, although I never wavered in my touch, I was enthralled by him.

This was very dangerous ground, but I didn’t care. I’d gotten out of harder positions than this. Yes, pun intended.

He didn’t speak; he simply took his time stripping out of his suit while watching us.

She pulled her hand away from me and motioned for him to sit between us, but instead he knelt before me and glanced at her. She took that as her cue, and slid her hands under my ass and pulled off my thong.

He kept eye contact with me even when she began to kiss his chest and shoulders.

I’d been in a few threesomes in my life but this guy was dangerous, even distracted with two beautiful women wrapped around him.

I slipped off to the side of the couch and let the two of them go at it. I needed a moment and needed to focus on what needed to be done.

She stood next to us and put her hands on his arm, smiling. I wondered if he had anything left in him to pleasure her. I almost felt bad but I was feeling so good right now that I didn’t care.

The sudden change in her expression put me back on guard. She stiffened her hands on his body, keeping him in place before me with my legs still draped over him.

When the curtain parted and someone stepped inside, I knew I’d been tricked. The jerk from the bar, Michael, who wanted to buy me a drink and wouldn’t go away, stepped in, his hands glowing orange.

I pulled the guy, who I thought was the mark, closer with my legs and slid two concealed blades from my boots.

“You should’ve let me buy you a drink,” the real mark said. He was now cocky, unlike the jerk he’d acted like at the bar. He’d suckered me in by acting like a loser to get me to drop my guard. I had. I wouldn’t make the same mistake again, and I was done chatting. I opened my mouth to respond and he smiled.

Before Michael could dodge I’d planted both knives in his chest. He fell back and pulled the curtain down as he collapsed in a heap.

I unceremoniously pushed the spent guy away from me, gave the stripper a withering stare, which told her not to move, and stepped quickly to the prone man on the downed curtain.

I slid the blades, bloody, from his chest and tossed them aside.

His hands began to glow again. “I knew what you were the second you entered the club.” He glanced behind me as he stood. “It was easy to fool you into thinking that he was the one you were looking for.”

“And easy to lure him here, where you hoped I’d be in a compromising position to keep me busy. You should have shown up sooner, because I was already done.”

He laughed at that and raised his pulsing, glowing hands. He’s what we call a Fiend, and a fairly advanced one.

He also wasn’t a match for me or my speed. I knew the two blades wouldn’t affect him but I’d wanted to give myself some room.

Right before he decided to blast me, I dropped to the floor and yanked another, slimmer blade from my boot. This weapon, blessed eons ago, passed down from necromancer to necromancer and given to me by my father, had always served me well.

The blade pulsed in my hand and shot forth of its own volition, impaling him in the throat. I watched as his look went from triumph to shock and then pain. He dropped to the floor, but this time I knew it was over, his hands extinguished.

I turned back to the stripper and the guy and smiled. “Help me get rid of the body and I’ll pay for the hotel room.” I turned to her. “Do a good job and I’ll let you play extra hard.”

Armand Rosamilia is a New Jersey boy currently living in sunny Florida,
where he writes when he’s not sleeping. He’s happily married to a
woman who helps his career and is supportive, which is all he ever
wanted in life…

He’s written over 150 stories that are currently available, including
horror, zombies, contemporary fiction, thrillers and more. His goal
is to write a good story and not worry about genre labels.

In 1629 something visited the parish of Feckenham. The events that
followed were so terrifying that they never gained their place in the
history books.

Now in 2008, something seems to be wrong with Marie Watson’s young
children.

Her father won’t believe her and her mother is nearing the end of her
tether.

Marie feels utterly alone.

But is she?

Helen stormed into the office and glared at DCI Royal with accusing eyes, she went to speak but Royal got in first.

“One word Roberts and you’re off the case too!” he said with an icy cold stare right back at her. As the two of them locked eyes, three people, cut and bloodied, burst in through the door at the rear of the office. A man in his late forties leapt on to the back of the seated DCI Royal slamming his icy stare into the desk with an almighty crack. A woman in her early forties knocked DI Scott to the ground and ran at Helen. She braced herself and took hold of her upper arms as she was forced back against the wall. DI Scott shuffled back into the corner and hugged his legs while the struggle ensued. DCI Royal was a bloody mess, bleeding heavily from his face as the man continued to smash his head on the desk. The third person, a boy no older than ten was on all fours as he crawled towards DCI Royal. Helen saw the boy over the shoulder of her assailant as he tore flesh from Royal’s leg with his teeth.

“Do something Scott for fuck’s sake!” Helen screamed, “Danny!” she yelled as loud as she could, desperately hoping that he would hear her. Scott had drained to white and was huddled in a tight foetal ball with his eyes screwed shut, he was helping no one and failed to realise he’d be next. The woman snapped her teeth towards Helen’s face but she was able to push away hard enough to make her miss and turn her around so she was facing the wall. “Danny help me!” she yelled again, now only able to hear the child chewing flesh rather than see it; it wasn’t any less disgusting. Helen pushed the woman’s arm up her back and forced her to the ground; still she gnashed her teeth and struggled to twist over. Danny cracked her across the base of the head with his baton knocking her out cold.

“Thanks,” Helen panted, reaching for her cuffs to make sure she wasn’t getting free if she came to. DCI Royal was dead and as the boy chewed on the flesh from his leg, the man was tearing at his throat like a wild beast.

“Who the fuck are these people?” Danny asked rhetorically. He stepped towards the boy and cuffed him with ease; the boy snarled and drooled like a feral dog, the meat from his kill spilling from his jaws. Helen took the child and sat him next to the woman with her foot in his chest to keep him from getting up.

“Scott!” she shouted, he was whimpering pathetically and struggled to force open his eyes, which were full of terror. The man stood tall behind Royal’s slumped corpse, sucking the slivers of flesh into his mouth. “Have you got this Danny?” Helen asked seeing him edge out from behind the desk looking at her partner. Helen grabbed her radio, “Hal, Moran; get to the control room now!” she shouted into it.

“Hey Roberts, you’re early; you and lover boy having a tiff?” Moran joked.

“Cut the shit and get here Moran, DCI Royal’s just been eaten alive!” Danny span round and kicked the man square in the side of the head; he folded over sideways hitting his head into the desk and then flopped flat out on his back.

“Better now thanks,” Danny searched the man for some id, he found his wallet and pulled out his driving license; he looked over at Helen.

“Sam Little, that’s the family I told you about; what the fuck happened to make them like this? I guess that’s Eve, and that’s Carl” he pointed at the others.

Hal and Moran ran into the office.

“What the fuck? I didn’t think you were serious, Jesus Christ!” Moran said seeing Royal slumped back with his throat torn open.

“Moran, keep it together and tie these three up properly will you; I’m gonna get some backup.” She stood back and stretched her leg while Moran and Hal took over restraining the boy. “And keep away from their mouths if you don’t want to end up like Royal.” she patted them both on their backs, “thanks.” Helen knelt down in front of DI Scott. “How quick can you get the armed response unit here sir?” DI Scott looked across at DCI Royal.

“Is he dead?” Scott whimpered and squirmed back in the corner crying.

“Yes he’s dead and you need to pull yourself together before we all are,” He just cried louder. “Scott!” Helen shouted, slapping him across the face, “you need to get the armed response unit here now!” He opened his eyes and Helen held his teary stare, “you need to step up and do this sir,” she said calmly; hoping to get through to him that way instead.

“Helen,” Moran wanted her attention, she looked up and he was gesturing towards the door as if to seek her advice; she seemed to have taken charge of the situation with her authoritative manner.

“Danny, get him out of here,” she saw a cameraman in the doorway filming the scene. Danny was on it already, noticing the man at the same time as Helen. He manhandled the cameraman out of the door and wrenched the camera from his grasp.

“Hey, you can’t do that!” he objected loudly. Danny proceeded to smash the camera on the floor. DI Scott had calmed quickly after realising the immediate threat had been quelled and he clambered to his feet.

“You can’t do that Curran,” suddenly he was trying to claw back his authority at the same time as sniffing backs his tears. Danny looked at him as he stamped the camera angrily.

“You want this shit on the news?” He gestured around the room, “you want videos of you cowering in the corner all over the internet do you?” The cameraman reached down and started grabbing pieces of his camera. “You get out, I won’t tell you again,” Danny said. Helen, Hal, and Moran all looked at him dagger eyed; the man left quickly, leaving his equipment behind.

Born in 1975, Matthew Williams has been a keen fan of the
horror/thriller/fantasy genres for as long as he can remember.
Whether it’s a film, a TV series, or a novel; he is drawn to all
the different aspects of these genres. Mainly it’s the complexities
and the mysteries that can be expressed with freedom and imagination
that he enjoys the most.

A fan of authors such as Stephen King, James Herbert, Dean Koontz,
Richard Layman – to name but a few!

A fan of TV shows such as Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Breaking
Bad, American Horror Story – to name but a few!

A fan of films such as Saw, Seven, Eden Lake, The Descent, Quarantine,
Skeleton Key, The Sixth Sense – to name but a few!

Matthew now has a small body of work of his own with ‘The Shady Corner’
and ‘Shadowchild’ only the beginning of what he is determined to
grow into an extensive collection of horror/thriller fiction novels.

“We all hold a beast inside. The only difference is what form it takes when freed.”

Rain Ryland has never belonged anywhere. He’s used to people judging him for his rough background, his intimidating size, and now, his orphan status. He’s always been on the outside, looking in, and he’s fine with that. Until he moves to New Wurzburg and meets Friederike Burkhart.

Freddie isn’t like normal teen girls, though. And someone wants her dead for it. Freddie warns he’d better stay far away if he wants to stay alive, but Rain’s never been good at running from trouble. For the first time, Rain has something worth fighting for, worth living for. Worth dying for.

Mary Lindsey is a multi award-winning, RITA® nominated author of romance for adults and teens. She lives on an island in the middle of a river. Seriously, she does. When not writing, she wrangles her rowdy pack of three teens, two Cairn Terriers, and one husband.

Inexplicably, her favorite animal is the giant anteater and at one point, she had over 200 “pet” Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches. The roaches are a long story involving three science-crazed kids and a soft spot for rescue animals. The good news is, the “pet” roaches found a home… somewhere else.

About the Book

In this gritty and innovative science-fiction thriller in the vein of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, turmoil on one of Saturn’s moons rattles Earth’s most powerful citizens—and draws one planet-hopping rogue into a fight he never saw coming.

Malcolm Graves lives by two rules: finish the job, and get paid. After thirty years as a collector, chasing bounties and extinguishing rebellions throughout the solar system, Malcolm does what he’s told, takes what he’s earned, and leaves the questions to someone else—especially when it comes to the affairs of offworlders.

But his latest mission doesn’t afford him that luxury. After a high-profile bombing on Earth, the men who sign Malcolm’s paychecks are clamoring for answers. Before he can object, the corporation teams him up with a strange new partner who’s more interested in statistics than instinct and ships them both off to Titan, the disputed moon where humans have been living for centuries. Their assignment is to hunt down a group of extremists: Titanborn dissidents who will go to any length to free their home from the tyranny of Earth.

Heading into hostile territory, Malcolm will have to use everything he’s learned to stay alive. But he soon realizes that the situation on the ground is much more complex than he anticipated . . . and much more personal. (via Goodreads.)

My Rating

4.85 Stars

My Review

I received this eBook from the author in exchange for an honest review.

This, as a total science fiction nerd, was a wonderful mashup Captain Mal and Jayne from Firefly, BladeRunner and a little of Mad Max mushed in to add interest. Especially with Earthian’s surviving after a meteorite strike.

The one thing made very prominent by the storyline is how much the alien species was displaced on Saturn. Ringers, as they were called. Humans had arrived to build colonies and gather gases from the rings of Saturn. In doing so, Humans displaced the alien species already living there and spread their illnesses to the species. The Ringer’s seemed to have a very low immunity to human illness. Which is what happened when settlers encountered the Native American’s.
But also, with the way that the world is going right now, this also struck a cord. The feelings from the immigrants and from the countries accepting immigrants was seen in this novel as well.
I do always enjoy when current events can ring true and loud involving stories.

Malcolm is truly the anti-hero. He is a true bounty hunter and rarely cared about anyone except doing his job and getting paid. Except maybe his daughter, who is considered illegitimate, because she was born outside of a human colony.

Then add in the almost cyborg Zhaff (who is actually human) to the mix and you have an interesting team. Especially with Zhaff’s very to the letter way of doing things and annoying everyone in the vincinity. I was pretty sure Malcolm’s eyeballs were going to roll out of his head. It was truly comedic at times.

But that ending! Come on! Now I need to see where the story goes! Sigh.

Where to Buy

About the Author

Rhett is a Sci-fi/Fantasy author currently living in Stamford, Connecticut. He is represented by Dystel & Goderich out of NYC and his published works include books in the Amazon Bestselling CIRCUIT SERIES (Published by Diversion Books) and TITANBORN SERIES (Random House Hydra). He is also one of the founders of the popular science fiction platform, Sci-Fi Bridge.

Rhett has been writing since he can remember, scribbling down what he thought were epic short stories when he was young to show to his friends and family. When he reached high school he decided to take that a step further and write his first novel. After the encouragement of his favorite English teacher, he decided to self-publish the “Isinda Trilogy” so that the people closest to him could enjoy his early work.

While studying architecture at Syracuse University, he continued to write as much as he could, but finding the time during the brutal curriculum proved difficult. It wasn’t until he was a senior that he decided to finally pursue his passion for Science Fiction. After rededicating himself to reading works of the Science Fiction authors he always loved, (Frank Herbert, Timothy Zahn, Heinlein, etc.) he began writing “The Circuit: Executor Rising”, the first part of a space opera series.

Since then he’s been hired by an Architecture firm in South Norwalk, CT. But that hasn’t stopped him from continuing to work on all of the countless stories bouncing around in his head. He’s also recently earned a Certificate in Screenwriting from the New School in NYC, in the hopes of one day writing for TV or Video Games.